Monday, June 24, 2013

{European Travels} Paris Day 4

Today was our last day in Paris, and we started the day a tad more frantic than we had hoped. It all started the night before when Josh went to grab dinner from a bakery down the street as I did laundry and finished packing. He returned home and we devoured the decadent bread and pastries. The French sure knows how to bake!

While we were eating, I was looking at my Eurorail pass. Months prior, we bought Select-a-passes that allowed us to travel between France, Italy, and Switzerland via trains, any 5 days we wanted. This saved us a ton of money, opposed to flying or buying individual train tickets. But, sitting in our French loft, I noticed that my Europass had Clark, my married name, while my passport still was under my maiden name, Smith. Crap!

Now, here is where someone might ask, "Why haven't you changed your passport yet?!" My answer: it costs money to do that! Not much, but enough to say, "Eh, not worth it!" Since I've been married, I simply book everything under my maiden name so there has never been any confusion. Until now. When we booked these, I simply forgot to use the right name. Big mistake.

I literally freak out. I know that they will kick me off the train. I start to cry. Josh tries to calm me down. He knows everything will work out; he will simply email the woman we got our passes through to get her advice. All he needed was her business card that was in his wallet. This is when Josh realizes he no longer has his wallet. Crap.

We tear the apartment apart looking for it, only increasing my anxiety. It is no where to be found. He obviously had it to buy dinner, so did he drop it along the way? Anyone could have picked it up and gone on a shopping spree by now. How are we going to pay for anything?! This is disastrous!

We knew the store was already closed, but we decided to retrace his steps, in hopes we would see it laying on the sidewalk. We walked what seemed like forever until we were at the front doors of the closed bakery. No wallet to be found. This was too much for me: Josh had lost his wallet, I wasn't going to Switzerland tomorrow, and our trip was ruined.

Then, we see someone walk by the locked doors. Josh knocks like a crazy man, finally getting the gentlemen to open the door to talk to us. Come to find out, he was there to clean the place. Josh tells him what happened and asked if he could scan the counter for his wallet. By pure miracle, it was laying on the counter, right where Josh now (conveniently) remembers he left it. Not one thing was missing. Pure miracle.

So back in the apartment, with wallet found, we focused on the original problem: how to get me on the train to Switzerland. We decided to wake up first thing in the morning and go to the train station to see if we can get the pass changed, or if my drivers license (that was expired-oops! and I brought on a whim) will work.

So our last day in Paris, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, we frantically went to Gare de Lyon train station and stood in line to get our questions answered. The attendant put our fears at ease and said that my drivers license will most likely be just fine (even though he didn't realized that it was expired!). We had a weight lifted off our shoulder thinking we might slide by if no one checks to thoroughly.

With that out of the way, we checked our bags at the station and set off to make the most of our last few hours in a city that we had absolutely fallen in love with. We knew we had to return to the Louvre, as they closed early on our first day. On the way to the Louvre we walked along the Seine to shop for souvenirs.

Next we stopped at Pont des Arts, a pedestrian only walkway also known as Lover's Bridge. Here, thousands of locks are placed along the railings and its keys are thrown into the Seine. This guarantees that you will return back to Paris. Of course, Josh and I had to partake in the tradition!

With souvenirs in our bags and our lock in Paris forever, we finally made it to the Louvre. You could spend days inside this huge museum, but we were under a time crunch to make our train. We made sure to see the Mona Lisa and viewed other Italian and French galleries before heading back to Gare de Lyon.

We found a Razorback!

We got on the train to Switzerland at 2:30, switching trains at Basel and arriving in Interlaken at 10:30pm. We passed time on the train playing Phase 10; I won of course. And by pure miracle again, no one questioned my ticket! The conductor came by to validate our tickets, then a police man came buy to check our passports, but neither compared the two. Praise God!